The Prague Cemetery

Whether it’s a critically acclaimed novel or provocative collection of essays, every work from best-selling author Umberto Eco is a highly anticipated publishing event. The Prague Cemetery is set amid conspiracy-rich 19th century Europe, where intrigue abounds—and where a lone, evil genius may be pulling all the strings.

Numero Zero

Numero Zero is the feverish and delightfully readable tale of a ghostwriter in Milan whose work pulls him into an underworld of media politics and murderous conspiracies (involving the cadaver of Mussolini's double, naturally). This novel is vintage Eco - corrupt newspapers, clandestine plots, imaginary histories - and will appeal to his many readers and earn him legions of new ones.

The Name of the Rose

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. But his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror. Brother William turns detective, and a uniquely deft one at that. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon-- all sharpened to a glistening edge by his wry humor and ferocious curiosity.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Internationally best-selling author Umberto Eco is a master stylist whose books, including The Name of the Rose and Baudolino, have been savored by millions around the world. Now, with The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Eco crafts another of the ambitious and breathtaking novels that are his trademark.

How to Write a Thesis

By the time Umberto Eco published his best-selling novel The Name of the Rose, he was one of Italy's most celebrated intellectuals, a distinguished academic and the author of influential works on semiotics. Some years before that, in 1977, Eco published a little book for his students, How to Write a Thesis, in which he offered useful advice on all the steps involved in researching and writing a thesis.

Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states.

The Leopard

Elegiac, bittersweet and profoundly moving, The Leopard chronicles the turbulent transformation of the Risorgimento, in the period of Italian Unification. The waning feudal authority of the elegant and stately Prince of Salina is pitted against the materialistic cunning of Don Calogero, in Tomasi's magnificently descriptive memorial to a dying age.

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

In this exhilarating book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.

My Name Is Red

At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of 16th-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers.

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution, and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

Some Danger Involved: Barker & Llewelyn Series, Book 1

An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.

The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time

Jimena Canales introduces listeners to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics.

The Bookseller's Tale: Oxford Medieval Mysteries, Book 1

Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot.

On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works 'Language and Responsibility' and 'Reflections on Language'

Described by the New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," Noam Chomsky is known throughout the world for his highly influential writings on language and politics. Featuring two of Chomsky's most popular and enduring books in one omnibus volume, On Language contains some of the noted linguist and political critic's most informal and accessible work to date, making it an ideal introduction to his thought.

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. After its founding in 509 BCE, the Romans refused to allow a single leader to seize control of the state and grab absolute power. The Roman commitment to cooperative government and peaceful transfers of power was unmatched in the history of the ancient world. But by the year 133 BCE, the republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled.

Every Dead Thing

Former NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker is on the verge of madness. Tortured by the unsolved slayings of his wife and young daughter, he is a man consumed by guilt, regret, and the desire for revenge. When his former partner asks him to track down a missing girl, Parker finds himself drawn into a world beyond his imagining - one where 30 year old killings remain shrouded in fear and lies, a world where the ghosts of the dead torment the living....

Murder as a Fine Art

Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater", is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London 43 years earlier. The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter, Emily, and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.

The English and Their History

Robert Tombs' momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.

Publisher's Summary

As Constantinople is being pillaged and burned in April 1204, a young man, Baudolino, manages to save a historian and a high court official from certain death at the hands of crusading warriors. Born a simple peasant, Baudolino has two gifts: his ability to learn languages and to lie. A young man, he is adopted by a foreign commander who sends him to university in Paris. After he allies with a group of fearless and adventurous fellow students, they go in search of a vast kingdom to the East - a kingdom of strange creatures, eunuchs, unicorns and, of course, lovely maidens.

Fusing historical events with myths and fables, this is a lighthearted, splendid tale.

Umberto Eco books are always convoluted and tricky and this book is no exception. I enjoyed the story but the reading was first rate. This probably the best reading I have heard out of the 10+ books I have listened to. He enlivened a story that dragged a little at times. I'm sorry it's over.

What made the experience of listening to Baudolino the most enjoyable?

I come back over and over again to this book because in it, Eco achieves to address serious and difficult matters as politics, power, religion, ambition or deceit in such a human and clever way, that it makes you think about them without hatred or fear or weariness. There are no black and white characters. You can sympathise with almost all of them because they are simply human, mistaken, misguided, or fanatics, but simply human. It makes you think, but it makes you laughs. It shows you beauty, goodness, friendship, compassion, survival, and a lot of what we have being and still are as human beings. It reminds us that we have Heaven and Hell all inside each one of us.

George Guidall’s narration makes the most of it. You can spend hours listening this audiobook without noticing the ticking of the clock.

I'm a fan of Umberto Eco novels. I definitely enjoyed this one, too. But I do find that the quality of his novels is mixed - there are some that are superb, some that are merely good, but don't live up to the expectations, and there are those that fall somewhere in between. Baudolino falls somewhere in between. I would say that it is the middle third that kind of drags down the total enjoyment of the book. Eco combines historical background and historical characters with fantasy and historically popular fantasy. So we find the sack of Constantinople in 1204, Frederick I and other historical events or characters, legends like those of Prester John, and fantastical conversions of historical characters like Hypatia, all woven together into a story of adventure, love, mystery, and fantasy. The leading characters are wonderfully developed, the human relationships and the problems with relationships and friendships are presented as the complexities that they are. There are moving portions, and the last chapters are a wonderful closing to this story. But the middle third - the journey to find the kingdom of Prester John, in which Baudolino and his comrades come upon all sorts of mythical creatures (and though I didn't check all of them, it appears that Eco did not make up most of these mythical creatures himself, but brilliantly brought them all into his fantasy) - tends to drag. I felt like, OK, we know that it won't end here, in this land with these weird creatures, I get the idea, let's move on with the story. But when it did move on, the total pleasure returned. It helps to know some Christian history, to appreciate the sectarian disputes (at some points I felt like this book is a fantastical version of Diarmaid MacCulloch's "A History of Christianity", and I was loving the connections I could make between the fiction and the history book). And, of course, the presentation of the world of Christian relics can be added to Mark Twain's comments on such relics in Innocents Abroad. But Eco is. More subtle in some ways because he gives some insight into the the thinking of people in such matters. Like all Eco books, to truly appreciate them you need to have some familiarity with the material that he uses to build his stories.The narrator was excellent. Overall, I'd recommend this book, but if you are not yet an Eco fan, don't start with this book. Start with The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Prague Cemetery (which is really only for people who will get the satire).

Would you consider the audio edition of Baudolino to be better than the print version?

Never read the paper version.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Baudolino?

The psychological musings of the characters and the authenticity of their conversations, fitting the context of a time when much was imagined but very little known, to the common man. This book is great for getting one's imagination working. It is an epic.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

alexander

Dublin 12, Ireland

7/14/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"not in the league of The Rose."

initially facinating, but became tedious.Unable to finish after 50% heard.Umberto Eco can be a marvelous writer, but not this time.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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